


Into the Sun

by mirandamyth



Series: seasons [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Castiel Out of the Empty (Supernatural), Comfort, Dean typical idiocy, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, FWF (Finale What Finale), First Kiss, Love Confession, M/M, Prayer, Resolved Romantic Tension, Sharing a Bed, Soft Epilogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28379043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirandamyth/pseuds/mirandamyth
Summary: Cas returns from the Empty, and Dean comes when he calls. A timestamp for By and By, works on its own.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: seasons [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2066691
Comments: 15
Kudos: 122





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [ If you wanna have the vibes I wrote this with, click for spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1ndOaepoTpeRgsNOyZWmVp)

In the early days, Dean feels guilty. The concept of all that Cas had given up to return to him weighs heavily on his mind. But Cas is here, and he is human, and Dean has never been happier. 

He and Sam had been hunting vampires in Ohio when the call came through, an unknown number from Maine. The rattle of his phone on the nightstand had roused Dean from an uneasy sleep, from dreams full of black sludge and unfinished sentences. 

“This is a collect call from — Castiel — do you accept the charges?” Dean’s breath catches in his throat at the sound of Cas’s voice, sitting upright immediately. “Do you accept the charges?”

The tinny, robotic voice jars him out of his shock. “Y-yes. Yes.” 

Dean pulls on his boots and jacket. Mindful of Sam, he slips outside into the pre-dawn morning, closing the door softly behind himself. The cold is bracing, helping to convince him this isn’t some kind of fucked up dream. 

“Please hold, your call is connecting.” A few seconds of static, then— “Dean.” 

“Cas?” The name he has been avoiding speaking out loud for weeks slips from him in a rough whisper, breath fogging in the morning air, “Cas, that really you?”

Cas reassures him, and recounts the journey he took to get back. He had shed his grace in the Empty, forcing it to release him. And release him it had — right into the heart of Purgatory. He has spent the last few months fighting his way to the portal, hoping that he had something resembling a soul human enough to pass through.

Dean sits on the concrete step as Cas talks, pulling a crumpled pack of Winston lights out of his pocket, and braces one between his lips. He lights it, hands shaking, and takes a deep drag. It doesn’t help much, but the rough draw of smoke in his throat grounds him, makes this feel just a little more like reality.

Dean is on the road within the hour. He'd left a note for Sam, and Eileen was on her way to back him up against the nest they had been hunting. The gps on his phone says it will take thirteen hours to get there and Dean is glad he had the presence of mind to call the nearest motel and pay for two nights over the phone, glad Cas will have somewhere warm and dry to sleep. 

It’s dark again when he pulls into a gas station on the Maine border. He holds his phone as he pumps gas, the phone number for the motel shining up at him. He can’t bring himself to dial it. Even after ten hours of rehearsing in his head, he doesn’t know what to say to Cas. He doesn’t know how to thank him, doesn’t know how to match the beautiful things Cas had said. 

He’s never been good with words. Not when they matter. Sure, he can talk people out of information, or make a kid feel at ease, but this? This is so much bigger than any bravado he puts on for the job. This is twelve years of misunderstandings and betrayals and words spoken in anger. It is twelve years of loaded gestures and life saving measures and there are so many ways he can fuck this up. There are so many ways he already has. There are things he has to make up for and anger he has to let go of. There is so _much_ to say, and Dean doesn’t know how to start.

He has been standing in the parking lot of the motor lodge staring at the door with its unassuming seven, the door key dangling from his hand for what feels like hours. The flashing clock on the motel sign assures him it hasn’t been more than ten minutes. He’s a coward, afraid of change, afraid of doing the wrong thing, afraid that he has misinterpreted, afraid that his memory of Cas’ death isn’t accurate, afraid that what he had heard and what Cas had meant were two different things. Mostly he is afraid this is another trick, that this is a djinn dream, that this is too good to be true. Afraid because good things rarely _do_ happen to Winchesters.

It’s another ten minutes before he can bring himself to move. He doesn’t use the key he had retrieved from the office, knocking instead. There is tension in the line of his shoulders, an ache in his jaw from too many weeks spent clenching it. All of that melts away when Cas opens the door looking rumpled and bleary-eyed, and all too human. And when Cas smiles, Dean can’t remember why he was afraid in the first place. 

It’s all he can do to test him, to make damn sure this really _is_ Cas, before pulling the angel into his arms. The familiar scent of ozone and rain fills his senses, mixed with cheap shampoo and the faint must of backwoods motels. Cas’ arms wrap around him in return, warm and firm and everything he has been missing these last few months. He doesn’t try to hide the tears he can feel coursing down his cheeks to soak into the thin cotton of Cas’ shirt. 

He says none of the things he had rehearsed on the drive, or any of the things that he has thought of since they saw each other last. Instead he bandages the shallow wound in Cas’ arm from the drag of a silver blade across his skin, hands steady without a gun in them for the first time in months. He retrieves his duffel from the car, along with the paper bag of takeout he had picked up on his way through town. 

They pass the evening in relative silence, but Dean can’t help himself from sneaking glances when he thinks Cas isn’t looking. He can’t help the way their feet tangle together under the small table. He can’t help the way his eyes follow Cas when he gets up to go to the bathroom, or the way his body seems to gravitate towards him when they sit together on the ratty bedspread. Dean can’t say what’s been playing on the television, but he will probably remember the sound of Cas snoring lightly against his collarbone forever. 

In the morning they are tangled together atop the covers, Dean’s head tucked under Cas’ chin, one arm tight around his middle. The curtains diffuse the morning sun to fill the room with soft, golden light. Cas’ arm is a warm weight against his back. He wants to stay here, cozy and well rested; close enough to hear Cas’ heartbeat. His phone vibrating in his pocket had woken him, and he’s sure it’s Sam. When Cas curls into the space he used to occupy, Dean considers ignoring the call, considers lying back down and pretending he never noticed. But if he had been the one abandoned in Ohio with little more than a hastily scrawled note, he’d expect Sam to answer. So he pulls the cover over Cas as best as he can and puts on his boots. He closes the door softly against the lock as he steps outside to call Sam back

Sam answers before the second ring. “Is it really — is it him?”  
“Yeah, Sammy,” Dean can’t fight the smile that breaks on his face, “it’s really him. I checked. Silver, holy water, everything. All came up clean.”

There’s a relieved sigh from Sam’s end. 

“Cas’s asleep now, but when he wakes up, we’ll be headed back home.” Dean pauses, clears his throat. “So, uh, you and Eileen okay? You cleared that nest out yet?”

“We took care of it last night, no problem. She’s driving us home now.” Sam sounds happy. He sounds tired, but he sounds happy. “Tell Cas I said welcome back? And I'll see you guys in a day or two, ok?”

“Yeah, I’ll pass it on. Tell Eileen I owe her one for covering your ass.” 

He hangs up on Sam’s dry chuckle. Dean leans back against the side of his car, eyes closed, face to the sun, and takes a deep breath. _I don’t know if any of this was you, kid,_ he prays wordlessly, _but thank you anyway. We miss you._ (Unfortunately, this might be the kindest prayer he has offered up to Jack in the last few months. There were a few weeks at the beginning where he would get drunk up on the roof of the bunker only to scream and rail at the heavens for letting Cas stay gone.) _And I’m sorry I spent so long putting that on you, I know you missed him too. I just get so angry. And I should have known better, should have treated you better. You’ve been a part of this family all along and somewhere along the way I forgot— no. I chose to act like you weren't. And I fucked up, kid. I started looking at you like my dad looked at me — not as a son, but as a tool. I let myself believe the mission was more important, that_ I _was more important than your happiness, than your safety. I should have made sure you had more time to just be a kid, instead of a soldier. And I don’t know that I will ever forgive myself for that._

For the second time in twelve hours, there are tears on his face, and he lets them fall. He might be imagining it, but it seems like the sun feels warmer, like the breeze drifting across the parking lot had softened as he prayed. He feels like he has been heard, feels as though he might have been forgiven.


	2. Chapter 2

Cas is awake when he goes inside. He’s making coffee in the shitty little pot provided by the motel and humming something that sounds suspiciously like ‘Single Ladies.’ Dean doesn’t interrupt him, hoping to preserve the careful, comfortable quiet of last night for just a little longer. He goes about getting himself ready for the day _—_ brushes his teeth, changes his clothes, washes his face, packs what little he’d removed from the duffel back into it. 

On the road the tranquil feeling dissipates, leaving behind a tense, charged silence that neither of them seems willing to break. The car feels too small for everything between them, for the words still hanging in the air, for the truth. And yet the space between them feels colossal, insurmountable, as though it were miles, not inches. It’s the same game they’ve been playing for years, each of them unable to muster the courage to breach that final gap. 

_Screw it_ , Dean thinks, _I can have this,_ we _can have this_. 

Before he has a chance to second guess himself, he reaches over, wrapping his free hand around Cas’. He feels him jump a little at the contact, and for a moment he is afraid he’s crossed the line. The panic evaporates as Cas threads their fingers together, and when he chances a glance to his right the weight of words on his tongue proves to be too much. He pulls off the road at the next rest area, just a small strip of asphalt off the highway in Vermont. Dean looks at their hands, intertwined in the liminal space that seems to always exist between them. 

“There’s—” He swallows against the lump in his throat, “Cas, there’s some things you need to know. About Chuck, about J— ”

“I know, Dean.” Cas interrupts. He’s solemn, “He visited me in a dream, after I left the Empty. I know he isn’t coming back.” 

“I’m sorry, Cas. I really am.” Dean hasn’t been able to bring himself to raise his gaze higher than the dashboard.

“Jack gave me a choice.” Dean meets his eyes now, brow furrowed in confusion. “He said I could keep fighting my way out of Purgatory or he could carry my soul to Heaven.”

“And you chose to come back _here_? Cas, you could have had—”

“Peace?” There’s a wry smile on his face, almost wistful as he turns to look out the windshield. “I made you that offer once. You told me it was worth it, all of it; the pain, the guilt — it was worth it to have freedom.”

Dean is dumbstruck, he can remember the conversation, though it feels like a lifetime ago. He studies Cas’ profile, the little lines that have cropped up around his eyes, a softness that used to be absent from his features. When Cas turns back to face him, Dean doesn’t look away.

“I told you Dean, you changed me.” The sincerity in Cas’s expression would have had him shying away in the past, but not now. Not today. “I may have chosen peace years ago, but now? No contest.”

“Cas, I—” 

“You don’t—” 

“Man, you gotta let me say it this time.” Dean sighs, shaking his head lightly. “You said I never stopped you from leaving, and you were right. This is me asking you to stay. Don’t you realize you’re one of the most important people in my life? When you d-” he draws in a shaky breath, “when you were gone, whenever you’re gone, it’s like I’m just going through the motions. It’s like I’m incomplete. Because you changed me too, Cas. You have so much faith in me, and I gotta tell you, buddy, I never understood why. But because you believed in me, I wanted to do better, to _be_ better.”

Dean pulls his hand away and reaches forward, fitting his palm along the line of Cas’ jaw.

“I never thought we could have _this_ , but you’ve always had _me_ , man — I love you Cas; of course I love you.” 

Dean’s words hang in the air between them as the moment stretches. The charge in the air is different, but no less palpable. He searches Cas’ face, drinking in every second of unbridled joy he can, savoring it in a way he couldn’t before. He wants to hold on to this. 

  
He’s not sure when they started leaning closer, perhaps pulled by that same ineffable force that has kept them gravitating towards each other for years, but when Cas closes the gap to press their lips together, Dean’s heart soars. Of all the times he has considered what it would be like to kiss Castiel, none compare to the actual experience. There’s no heat behind it, no urgency. It’s a first kiss that promises a second, that promises a million more. It’s a kiss that promises a lifetime.

**Author's Note:**

> if you loved this, leave me a comment or come yell at me on tumblr @smokerdean  
> this fic is rebloggable [ here ](https://smokerdean.tumblr.com/post/639104279905484800)


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